


The Bitter and the Sweet

by jamelia116



Series: Triangles [1]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 02:47:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1013148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamelia116/pseuds/jamelia116
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Voyager's return to the Alpha Quadrant, Chakotay looks back upon the romantic attachments he formed during the Delta Quadrant years. Includes spoilers for and, at times, dialogue from: Investigations, Resolutions, Blood Fever, Distant Origin, Displaced, Scientific Method, as well as references to other 2nd through 4th season episodes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bitter and the Sweet

**The Bitter and the Sweet  
A "Triangles" Series Story **

Sometimes you live in a Fool's Paradise. It's just the way it is. You tell yourself things are going well. That you've found your niche in life. You love your job. You've found the perfect lover. You think you're happy. Maybe you even *are* happy.

And then it happens, and you know. No matter how happy you are, it's bound to end, someday, one way or another.

With Tom and I, it didn't end with angry words. We didn't even fall out of love, exactly. He simply found someone else he loved more than me. Someone he found he could not live without.

It's ironic, really, because I have no one to blame but myself. How angry can I be, when I was the one responsible for making him realize it? I brought them together.

=^=

Tom and I first came together a year or so before. After he escaped from Seska and Maje Cullah's Kazon ship, he came to me to apologize for his part in the captain's subterfuge. He admitted he'd enjoyed baiting me much more that he should have, the entire time he was trying to find out who the traitor was, but he was sorry he'd gone on "A Briefing With Neelix" and told everyone about how it had been "fun." That, he said, was going a bit too far with the joke.

I really *was* angry with him at first, but before long he had me laughing at some of the stunts he'd pulled. The man could be very sensitive to other people's feelings, even if the net effect was that yes, he *HAD* made a fool of me. At least his apologies seemed to be sincere. That could have been me fooling myself again, as I had when I had presumed Seska and Jonas had been loyal to me. Over time, however, I realized Tom's apology had been an honest one.

I think that was the also first time I could admit to myself how inaccurate my first impressions of him had been. He hadn't been arrogant when he came to us in the Maquis; he'd been in pain. Bereft of the career he'd always wanted, he'd pretended he didn't care about it after he lost it. After he came back from the Kazon ship, I finally saw him as he really was. I think I might have fallen in love with him right then and there. At the time, I just knew he made me feel better about myself, and I needed to feel that way then.

One thing led to another. Tom ended up spending the night with me. We were both lonely, I guess. It was a welcome development, because after finding out Michael Jonas as well as Seska had turned on me and the captain hadn't trusted me enough to let me in on the ruse, I was feeling very low in spirit. I hadn't been with anyone since Seska betrayed me. Finding out she was Cardassian was bad enough. Discovering she stole my DNA to become pregnant by me without my knowledge had turned me off to forming any new relationships. 

Despite his reputation as a Lothario, Tom hadn't had a real relationship with anyone since he'd come on board Voyager, either. He'd dated Megan Delaney for a while and flirted with many of the crew, even the captain, but he hadn't gotten serious with anyone. He didn't find anyone he felt comfortable enough to be with long-term. I suspected Tom couldn't find anyone he cared about who was willing to have him. In those days, a lot of the crew still doubted him. After his participation in the captain's scheme, despite my attraction to him and the night we'd spent together, I wasn't sure of him myself. His "bad boy" act had fooled everyone, not just me. Before long, although he officially maintained his own quarters, we were in fact, if not in name, sharing mine.

The truth is, a lot of us were lonely back then. Tom and I weren't the only ones who fell into each other's arms to assuage our loneliness. By that second year, we'd been lost in the Delta Quadrant long enough to realize just how small our chances of getting home really were. We wanted to find happiness for as long as we had, with someone; but with less than 160 people on board the ship, not many of us were finding anyone who could be our partners in life, let alone soul mates. 

Many of the relationships formed then were pretty shallow. I now can accept that. We were all trying to make the best of an unbearably bad break. In too many cases, we were settling for comfort from someone reasonably compatible because we'd given up on the expectation of ever finding true love. I actually was shocked how wonderful it was to be with Tom. I thought Tom felt the same. I never thought we'd ever part. Maybe I should have known better, since he never did officially give up his own quarters.

=^=

Not long after Tom and I became "an item," Kathryn and I were bitten by insects on an away mission. We both became extremely ill. The captain named Tuvok acting captain just before the EMH put us into stasis to keep us from dying while he searched for a cure for us. Kathryn and I assumed we would be in stasis for a couple of days, at the most, before the Doctor produced his latest miracle. Then everything would go back the way it had been.

We were wrong. We woke up on the planet we called New Earth, where because of some quirk in the environmental conditions, we could survive indefinitely. And that seemed to be the best we could expect, unless my scientific-minded former captain could find a cure for what ailed us on her own, when the sum of all medical knowledge in the Alpha Quadrant (in the form of our EMH) could not.

Kathryn and I became *very* close on New Earth after a bad plasma storm destroyed her medical research equipment. Truth is, I was comfortable there even before that. As far as I was concerned, we had made it home. I wished Tom could be with me, but since he wasn't, I was determined to make the best of it. The dangers of traveling through the Delta Quadrant on Voyager were in our past. Maybe it was "settling," but it promised to be a very pleasant life for both of us. Scientific research for her. Homesteading for me. Even after the equipment was destroyed, we planned on exploring, adding to human knowledge. Someday in the far future, the Federation might be able to reach this planet. We could leave whatever findings we made for those future explorers to discover.

Then Voyager came back for us, with a cure they'd obtained from the Vidiian we'd helped a while before, Dr. Denara Pel. We were on our way again. 

There was no question of Kathryn and I continuing any sort of personal relationship once we returned to Voyager. Protocols. She was just as constricted by the "parameters" as I was. It was going to be hard for her; we both knew that. She was returning to a solitary emotional life, the Loneliness of Command, because there was no one else for her to turn to emotionally on Voyager except for me, and my position as first officer prevented it. We both accepted we couldn't return to the life we'd lived on New Earth.

I didn't really mind. I knew I was returning to Tom. 

It's funny. It never occurred to me that while Kathryn and I were living peacefully together on New Earth, someone who promised him anything but peace might have caught Tom's eye. Not to mention his heart.

=^=

It started with the threesome. Tom didn't want to do it. He isn't nearly as adventurous about sex as his reputation suggested. B'Elanna was game, though. She'd freely admitted to me she'd wished the pon farr episode had ended differently on the Sakari world. B'Elanna had always wondered what it would be like to be with Tom. She didn't know why they'd never happened before, but after Tom and I became an item, she assumed it was because he must really love me. When Tom as much as admitted he wouldn't mind a fling with her, she'd warned him off with that "be careful what you wish for" remark in the turbolift. She thought that would be the end of it.

That should have been my clue to what would happen if we went ahead with anything more. Everyone on the ship, even me, thought Tom and B'Elanna might get together someday; maybe it was even inevitable. B'Elanna had been my friend and colleague for a long time, though. Tom made an offhand crack that she'd been "living like a Tabern monk" one day, and I realized it was much too accurate for my taste. She needed a fling to loosen her up, relax her. So, to satisfy her curiosity and nip in the bud what even I could see was their growing attraction to each other, I invited her to be with Tom and me. For one night. Just for sex. "Just to get it out of her system." And his. 

We had a good time that night, once Tom got over his aversion to the idea (which was a major surprise to B'Elanna!) and his nervousness. She had to help him undress her. His fingers lost the ability to undo the buttons of the shirt she was wearing.

I should have known then.

The sex between the three of us was great. We were all completely satisfied. Afterwards, we were all so civilized, too. Good friends. Joking, as if we hadn't just screwed each other blind. I actually thought it would work out exactly the way I'd planned. 

In the following weeks, however, I noticed B'Elanna never approached Tom unless someone else was present, or if she was forced to talk to him on ship's business. The longing looks in each other's direction started up again. The sparring. I tried to ignore it, hoping, with time, it would go away on its own.

By the time we encountered the Voth, there was a new wrinkle, a competitive edge to their relationship I hadn't seen before. Tom made a bet with her about an engineering problem, and he turned out to be right. The payoff was that B'Elanna had to participate in a Klingon martial arts program.

B'Elanna hates Klingon martial arts. In fact, she hates just about everything Klingon, especially that part of herself. "She needs to accept her Klingon self as much as her human side, Chakotay. She'll be happier when she can do that," Tom explained to me when he told me about winning the bet. Privately, I thought getting B'Elanna to accept being half-Klingon was a huge undertaking, but, with all the considerable zest and humor he's capable of, Tom dove right in. 

The Voth delayed B'Elanna's payoff to him. After we captured one of the cloaked scientists who was observing us, the other one, Gegen, captured me; and then the Voth sent their huge City Ship to capture Voyager. It was so immense, Voyager was literally engulfed by it. Tom tried to save our ship singlehandedly, as he's done before. Even he couldn't defeat the Voth by himself.

The leaders of that dinosaurian race did not want to accept what their scientist Gegen had to say about the link between our races. They refused to believe we'd all originated on the same planet on the other side of the galaxy. The idea that the Voth had left Earth geological ages ago to settle in the Delta Quadrant was against all of the Voth precepts, all their "core doctrine." It seemed incredible to me, too, but the DNA evidence convinced me that Gegen was correct. There were too many similarities between us for it to be all a coincidence.

I was present during his trial, when Gegen was given a choice. He could turn his back on his theories or stand helplessly by while Voyager was destroyed and our crew imprisoned for the rest of our lives. I was reminded of another great scientist, Galileo Galilei, who was forced to recant his astronomical discoveries since they ran counter to the doctrines of one of the great powers of his time, his church. It took almost four hundred years for church leaders to admit that they may have been "in error" when they made Galileo recant what he knew was right. Gegen stood before his First Minister and sacrificed his future as a scientist for us. He recanted. A case of history repeating itself, perhaps? I hope so.

Afterwards, we met once more on his small ship, before Voyager was allowed to go on its way towards the planet where both of our species had originated. I had a gift to give him.

I admired Gegen. I'd enjoyed his company, once we'd gotten over our rough beginning, when I was his prisoner. Before I presented him with my gift, we spoke together for a few minutes. We discussed his theories in more detail. He explained how he came upon the evidence to formulate them by tracing Voyager's path, beginning with their discovery of poor Hogan's remains on Hanon IV. He admitted he had been overconfident when he and his junior colleague Vir came on board Voyager. He had been certain our crew could not detect them while they surreptitiously observed us. 

We laughed over his assumption the Federation must be a matriarchal society because he'd come onto the bridge and watched the captain lead us--although I had to admit, on Voyager, we do have a matriarchal system in many ways. I made a point of letting him know it certainly wasn't that way everywhere in Starfleet. 

And then he said something that took me aback. "So, Commander, how long do you think it will take for that courting couple to consummate their relationship?"

"Courting couple?" I asked, not being able to think of anyone who fit that description off hand. 

"Yes, the tall golden-haired man and the dark-haired woman from your engineering department. The woman with the different forehead, perhaps I should say? Although I noticed a couple of your people with pointed ears, crimped noses, or blue skin, she's the only one I noticed who had a rippled forehead like that. Humans don't have such wide variations of coloration and facial features, do they? I presume some of your people are representatives of other races in your Alpha Quadrant."

"The woman you saw is half-human. Her mother was Klingon." I got a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach when I considered who the blond-haired man might be, although it could have been someone else. Culhane, perhaps, or Larsson. It didn't have to be Tom. Somehow, though, I knew it was. "What makes you think they were courting?"

"They were exhibiting what would be classic courting behavior among my people. The female clearly was encouraging the male by feigning antagonism, to which he responded with a challenge. Something about a 'martial arts program.' She's Klingon, you say? Now I understand the reference! He challenged her to a 'Klingon martial arts program,' and he told her to bring her own implement. I don't recall exactly what it was called . . . a 'battle-something,' I think."

"Bat'leth. It's a type of sword," I said automatically, resolutely putting Tom and Klingon martial arts programs out of my mind.

"Ah, yes. When I study your data base, I'll make a special note to review that weapon."

"You're still going to study our data base?"

"I will keep my promise to the First Minister to be the least efficient of all metallurgists that ever existed. But in my spare time--for personal enjoyment only, of course--I will learn all there is to know about Earth, your people, and your neighbors in your Alpha Quadrant. I am entitled to have a hobby, don't you think? Something to relax me at the end of the day, so that I can get the stink of metals out of my olfactory nodes?"

I laughed with him. Gegen was a good person. I would miss him. He apparently felt the same way, for after speaking more about his changed status, he said, "Chakotay, you've been a colleague and a friend. I'll never forget you."

"Here's something else I hope you never forget." I gave him a token of friendship from the crew of Voyager, a small glass model of Earth. He accepted it gratefully. 

"Someday, every Voth will see this as home," he vowed, handling the beautiful blue orb with reverence.

"Someday. 'Eyes Open.' "

"Eyes Open."

=^=

As I beamed out, "Eyes Open" had a new resonance for me. Courting couple. I never did answer Gegen about when they would consummate their union. I could quite honestly have said they'd already consummated it, but had agreed not to continue. I held back that knowledge. Perhaps I knew, even then, they weren't really finished yet.

I never told Tom about Gegen's assumption, either. When I lay in Tom's arms that night, somehow, the subject never came up. I was too busy pleasing him. He was very warm and passionate, as always, but there was something I could detect that night I'd never seen before--or maybe I just hadn't been willing to see it before. There was a sense he was holding some part of himself back. It never occurred to me that while I was with Gegen, the rest of the crew was imprisoned, and the "courting couple" were together.

Eventually, B'Elanna gave in to Tom and followed through on the bet. And hated it, of course. B'Elanna was brandishing a bat'leth in Tom's face at the moment the first Nyrian beamed into the corridor next to them. The Nyrians stole Voyager and banished us to the Habitat, giving Tom and B'Elanna more time to battle and make up. When they were rescued from the freezing temperatures in the Argala habitat with their arms wrapped around each other, I saw them. I admit it; I was jealous. Tom assured me he was holding her because B'Elanna was going to give up. She was about to sit down in the freezing habitat and die for sure. He couldn't let that happen. That's what he told himself, too.

After that, they got together for lunch every now and then. Tom would spend time with her when our duty shifts were out of synch and the two of them were free, just I had always done with B'Elanna. In a way, we were becoming a threesome after all, just without the sex.

Kathryn told me how upset B'Elanna was when Tom couldn't get out of the holodeck simulation when he and Tuvok were stuck there. I was upset, too, but B'Elanna, Kathryn said, "was frantic."

And then we met the Borg and Species 8472. In the conference room, when Kathryn was announcing what seemed, at the time, to be an invitation to be assimilated by the Borg, I noticed how they gazed at each other anxiously--no--longingly. I could no longer ignore the connection between them. I knew they loved each other. If we got past this crisis, I was going to lose Tom to her. It was no longer "if," but "when." 

If we survived.

=^=

Survive we did, with the help of Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero One. But after we almost lost both Tom and B'Elanna to anoxia on the Klingon Day of Honor, Tom made it clear he needed to be with her. B'Elanna admitted her love for him when they both thought they were going to die. Afterwards, when he confronted her about it, she confirmed it was the truth. Tom said he didn't want to lose me, either. He was unsure what he should do. I told him maybe we didn't have to part. Perhaps we could join together as a threesome.

"Like that old 20th century song, 'Triad?' " he asked. "The Jefferson Airplane . . ."

I had no idea what he was talking about. He played the song for me, and I agreed. The lyrics expressed perfectly what I was feeling: "Why can't we go on as three . . ."

I invited B'Elanna to be with us, even move in, if she wanted to. I secretly hoped she would agree so Tom would finally move in officially with me. She demurred, but she did agree to become our mutual lover. "The two handsomest men on the ship? How could I possibly refuse?" she purred when we asked her.

It happened all over again. That same awkwardness on Tom's part when we undressed each other. Just as they had the first time, they insisted on "following the chain of command" when it came to pleasuring each other. Mine was to take precedence. They were perfectly willing to wait for their own turns.

They stretched me out between them, with Tom on my left side, B'Elanna to my right, and went right to work. They were far more creative than the first time we had been together, all those months ago. They began by kissing me all over my face, each taking a side, never crossing over into the other's "space." The only exception was when they kissed me on the lips. They took turns then, each trying to outdo the other in playing a game of dueling tongues. We laughed together, until finally I gasped that if it went on any longer, my tongue would start to cramp up from being overworked.

They worked their way down my body, in tandem. Their hands deftly stroked me, teased me, kissed me, pinched me, as if my body was a piano keyboard being tickled and played in an erotic four-handed duet. Two sets of lips seemed to be touching me everywhere at once. I had only one hand to answer back for each of them, but I gamely tried to please them, too, as much as I could, for as much of them as I could reach. As they moved down my body, I'm afraid the sensations they were eliciting swept me away so often, I wasn't really aware of what my own hands might have been touching. They never complained. They were too busy indulging themselves in tormenting me with delight.

Once, poised over my navel, they paused. Their hands still touched me. Each of them had one hand teasing my nipple, while the other explored the tender flesh of my scrotum . I was groaning so much I didn't even notice Tom and B'Elanna's lips were locked together rather than on my body--until they growled at each other. I opened up my eyes and saw them, their naked bodies flushed and gleaming in the heat of passion, their eyes flashing at each other, as they grinned and growled at each other. As one, they looked towards my face and laughed, but I didn't join in. There was something in Tom's eyes at that moment that killed any sense of fun I might have felt in the situation. 

Any misgivings I had died, because Tom chose that moment to go down on me, licking and sucking on me in all the techniques he'd perfected during the previous year. I noticed B'Elanna kissing him on the shoulder once, for only a moment, but then I was lost in the passionate sensations both of them brought to me. I pulled B'Elanna over me so I could suckle her clit while Tom engulfed me with his talented mouth. Giving and receiving, I was in total ecstasy. My only disappointment was when I came sooner than I wished.

Now, it was time to share with Tom as well as B'Elanna. With a gesture Tom and I knew well from our time together, we rolled over. This time we scooped up B'Elanna and flipped her over, onto her back. It was my turn to arch myself over her, to better lick and nuzzle her, as Tom poised himself to enter me from the back. 

And then came the signal Tom and I always dreaded when we were fully engaged in our most intimate moments . . .

:::Janeway to Commander Chakotay:::

I barely had time to catch my breath. Somehow I managed to control my breathing well enough to answer her hail.

:::I'm sorry to interrupt you on your evening off, Commander, but my head is pounding. I can't take it any more. Please, can you come and relieve me on the bridge for a while? With this region we're passing through . . .:::

"Understood, Captain. I'll be there in a few minutes."

:::Thank you, Commander::: Kathryn said it with such relief in her voice I could not fault her for calling me to the bridge, rather than asking Kim or Rollins to take command. The subspace conditions in this region *were* tricky, but not as much as the alien species we had been encountering during the past couple of weeks. By mutual consent, Kathryn and I had alternated command for all but a few hours of Gamma shift each night, to allow us both a chance to rest--although neither of us had really slept easily during those hours when the other was not in command.

I tried to apologize to Tom and B'Elanna, but they brushed my attempts away.

"It's no problem, Chakotay," B'Elanna said. "We can do this another night." 

"Good thing we did you first," Tom said, with that drawl of his that can either tickle me or infuriate me, depending upon when he uses it. "It could have been worse--it could have been a red alert!"

We all laughed, but it was a nervous laugh from B'Elanna. I could guess why. She hadn't had the chance to come, and neither had Tom. They were both left hanging, with stirred emotions and a hint of blood fever, first ignited in B'Elanna in the tunnels of Sakari but never assuaged at the time by sex, as it should have been. Our first time together hadn't really been enough for her to get over that, I knew.

"It's okay. You two should continue. You know, if we're going to be together like this, there are bound to be times when B'Elanna is called away. Or you will be, Tom. Just go on without me. Have fun!"

I kissed them both, Tom first, then B'Elanna, but I didn't linger over either kiss. The captain needed me on the bridge. I wasn't in any state at the moment to appear there, even if I quickly pulled on my uniform. The smell of sex was all over me. I needed to wash it away before appearing in public.

I got up and strode quickly to the sonic shower. I didn't bother to glance back at the bed. It was up to the two of them whether to proceed without me or to call it a night. As I called for the sonic shower to begin, I heard growls behind me, then a yelp from Tom. I smiled. She must have bitten him again, just like she had in the gallicite mines of Sakari.

It didn't register at the time just what that might mean.

=^=

When I got out of the shower, I heard them before I saw them. They were still thrashing around noisily. Tom was inside her, pumping away frantically. She was gasping and, clearly, on the verge of an orgasm, or for all I knew, the fourth. Tom was certainly capable of bringing her to one climax after another. I noticed that a little of the blood from the bite on his cheek had dripped down along the edge of his jaw. I saw her grip his shoulders and force his face down close enough for her tongue to flick away the drops. Tom halted his movement, closed his eyes, and moaned softly, in passion, not pain. I'd heard those moans from him before. The look on his face was indescribable. Total bliss. I had seen many expressions cross his face when we'd made love, but never that one. At the stabbing in my heart, I had to look away from Tom's face. I made the mistake at glancing at B'Elanna's face instead.

I have known B'Elanna for years. We had great fun that first time, when we were a threesome, but that smile of utter joy never reached her eyes that night. With Tom--and only Tom--I saw it. He began to thrust again vigorously, again and again. I was frozen in place and watched as she cried out when he brought her to ecstasy. As he collapsed over her, I heard her murmur something in his ear. He laughed softly and turned to gaze into her eyes. He lowered his bitten cheek to her mouth. I thought she would bite him again, but instead her tongue lapped over the mark on his cheek, softly, gently. She was tasting his blood, again. And that was the moment I remembered what that act meant. It was the Klingon way to seal a mating.

At that point I forced myself to turn away, to pull on my clothes without being fully aware of what I was doing. Until afterwards, when I stood there and realized my right boot was on my left foot, and I was trying to pull on one of B'Elanna's absurdly small ones instead of my own onto my right foot. I dropped B'Elanna's boot, slipped my own boot off and pulled it onto my right foot, and then managed to get my left boot on the correct way. The entire time, my mind raced away out of my quarters and literally light years away, back to the Alpha Quadrant, into the past.

I have searched all my life for someone who made me feel at peace with my own restless nature. B'Elanna and I had discussed the subject several times, over Romulan ales downed in smoky bars, when we were still in the Alpha Quadrant fighting for the Maquis. 

That elusive search for true happiness was something neither B'Elanna nor I ever could achieve back home. Both of us had rejected the cultures of our families. After Dorvan suffered such devastating destruction, I regretted I'd never fully accepted my life there. I think I probably could have, if I'd been willing, but with the coming of the Cardassians, I would have lost it all anyway. Ironically, the closest I ever came to feeling that sort of peace was with Kathryn on New Earth. 

B'Elanna had never felt at home anywhere, but then, she was the child of two ethnicities. All she'd ever wanted was to feel at peace within herself. We had shared that inability to accept ourselves for what we really were. We were close friends, but we never took the final step of becoming lovers--until Tom.

That night, when I watched the two of them loving each other, I saw that total acceptance of herself. With the man who was searching for redemption, B'Elanna found her own. Tom had the capacity to accept himself, warts and all. It was others who never seemed to be able accept him. His father, in particular, had pushed him so hard, he'd lashed out and become self-destructive. And, for too long, I hadn't seen him for what he was either.

Despite his faults, Tom had the gift of knowing who he was, and, more importantly, he could accept us as we were, flawed though we might be. I had loved being with Tom, but I realized, as I finally rushed out the door that night, that their bond was something more, much more powerful than I'd anticipated--before I admitted to myself that I *had* anticipated it. That's what I'd hoped to get out of their systems all those months ago: that potential to become more than simply lovers for a short fling, but mates forever.

After that, over the next week or so, their relationship escalated. They couldn't get enough of each other, whether I was there with them or on their own without me. Off-duty or, as it turned out, on duty, they joined together whenever they could. Fucking in the sonic shower. Rolling around in engineering. Making love in Jeffries tubes. 

The captain was furious, as was I. Her pounding migraine headaches didn't help, of course; my patience was lessened by the onset of the symptoms of extreme old age. We weren't the only ones affected with mysterious symptoms, but Tom and B'Elanna's lack of control was not seen by any of us as part of that pattern of the unexplainable. After all, both had "reputations" of having voracious sexual appetites--even though neither had ever exhibited any real evidence of expressing them on Voyager before--and certainly not publicly, as was happening regularly now.

The rapid deterioration of my physical condition eventually became so extreme, I was sent to Sickbay for treatment. When others with even more debilitating illnesses appeared amongst the crew, I was invalided out to my quarters to make room in Sickbay for them. Tom and B'Elanna cared for me tenderly--when they weren't tearing each other's clothing off and having sexual encounters right in front of me. They were insatiable.

The cause was finally discovered by the Doctor and Seven of Nine. Once the Doctor adjusted her ocular implant to the right frequency, Seven could see the Srivani scientists who were invisible because they were out of phase with our crew. We became their "lab rats" as they experimented on us. Tom and B'Elanna's hormone levels were increased to such a degree, the Doctor said he was astonished they were able to function at all.

Once Kathryn found out the truth, and perhaps goaded on by her intractable headaches, she eradicated the danger by almost killing all of us. The aliens died when they tried to escape as Voyager shot through the binary pulsars. Their flimsy ships were unable to withstand the conditions in the system. Voyager itself barely survived.

I went back to Sickbay, and the Doctor treated me to allow me to revert to my relatively youthful state. Afterwards, I assumed the three of us would also go back to the way things were--once Tom and B'Elanna's hormone levels settled back to where they were supposed to be. The two of them, unlike me, needed very little treatment from the Doctor. He prescribed rest, which they gladly took together, in each other's arms, as they dissipated their high hormone levels the natural way. With sex.

When I returned to my quarters, however, I saw Tom had moved all of his things out. It was a temporary change, he said. He and B'Elanna were together now, until "we get it out of our systems." They joked with me that their relationship was "a result of all that alien experimentation." Eventually, they assured me, we'd go back to being a threesome.

It never happened.

What I'd seen in their eyes when they'd been making love with each other, that night I'd had to leave for the bridge--that was not the result of any alien experiment. That was Thomas Paris and B'Elanna Torres discovering the true nature of their relationship for the first time. 

The Srivani leader had refused to tell the captain anything about their methodology before they tried to abandon ship. Their destruction prevented us from asking them about it afterwards. How did they assign experiments to our crew? What was the selection criteria? We weren't even sure how long they'd been aboard Voyager, silently invading our space and observing us, playing Peeping Tom to our most personal moments. 

Had they chosen Tom and B'Elanna for their hormone experiment because of what they'd seen of them when they'd been having sex--without any extra inducements?

However it had been done, my relationship with Tom was done, too. Tom stayed with B'Elanna from then on, all the way home to the Alpha Quadrant. They had their ups and downs, of course. What relationship doesn't? From then on, though, there was no question of their being together. Unlike most of us on Voyager, they'd found their soul mates. We all knew it. There was no room for me anymore.

They have a family of three now, of course. Little Miral was born even as we were fleeing through transwarp conduits back to the Alpha Quadrant, one long "hang ten" journey on a wave of destruction, just ahead of the Borg. I've seen them a few times since then. They're happy together, blissfully so, I must admit. It's a bittersweet thing to realize how thankful they are to me for bringing them together. They've told me so, many times. They made me the second godfather to little Miral, along with the Doctor. I am "one of the family" now. Just not the way I'd wanted to be. 

Seven and I have been in a relationship for the past year. I'm not sure how permanent it will turn out to be, but we enjoy each other's company. I've learned to live in the moment and not worry about tomorrow. The future will be what it will be, and wanting forever won't make it so. Thanks to the twists and turns of her own history, it suits Seven to live that way too.

In this, we're doing better than Kathryn is. As far as I can tell, she's still alone. The protocols to which we adhered when we were in the Delta Quadrant seem to have become ingrained in her nature. Perhaps the actions of "Admiral Janeway" are preventing Kathryn Janeway from living the rest of her life without thinking of that dark future, whether it actually happens that way now or not.

That's the thing about "the future." Just because you anticipate something happening, it doesn't mean it will. 

I thought I would be with Tom forever. I would have been happy if B'Elanna had joined with us forever, too. The math just didn't work out. Three simply doesn't go into two evenly, I'm afraid. Gegen was a fine scientist. He'd observed the crew, made a hypothesis, and arrived at what turned out to be a completely accurate conclusion concerning that "courting couple," Tom and B'Elanna. Male/female courtship rituals, indeed--that was what they were, even though I couldn't accept it at the time.

That song "Triad"--the one Tom played for me when we were talking about inviting B'Elanna to live with us--I've listened to it many times, and I always wonder if things worked out for that threesome. 

Somehow, I don't think it did. The melody was beautiful, but it wasn't happy. It was melancholy. Sad. Bitter, as well as sweet. Just like my love for Tom Paris. I don't think I ever truly realized how much I loved him until he was out of my life. I am happy with the memories, but sad when I think that if I had left well enough alone, we might still be together.

"Eyes open," indeed.

The End

**Author's Note:**

> There have been many Chakotay/Paris stories which begin with Tom and B'Elanna breaking up, followed by Tom hooking up with Chakotay. This is not one of these stories. While I had outlined this story in 1999, at the same time I wrote "Masques," I did not finish it until 2013. I guess I needed to be sure about how it was supposed to go. 
> 
> Disclaimer: Even in these more enlightened times, I don't think Paramount/Viacom, which owns all things Star Trek, would allow this particular episode to make it on the air with all the romantic details in place. I make no claim of ownership for the elements of this story, except for the situation they find themselves in.


End file.
